88 national geographic • April 2015
the lowest caste—and a large number of fighters
from the country’s socially disadvantaged, de-
scribed in the constitution as Backward Classes.
Unworldly and vulnerable, the Adivasis in
Abujmarh proved natural hosts to the fugitives
among them, and after years of exposure to
Maoist ideology, many became Naxalite recruits.
It was hardly surprising in a nation where
nearly 180 million people survived on less than
two dollars a day—and where a round of drinks
among the urban elite in a Delhi bar could ex-
ceed a farmer’s monthly wages several times
over—that militant communism would thrive
in neglected areas beyond the writ of local au-
thority. The glitz and glamour of central business
districts were a universe away from vast, impov-
erished tracts of rural India.
What made the Naxalite insurgency so pecu-
liarly ironic, however, and gave it such an impact
on the country’s future was that its epicenter was
in the very heart of India’s immense mineral
wealth. This is the natural inheritance so central
to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategy to
regenerate India’s moribund economy and pro-
vide electricity to the one-third of the country’s
households—some 300 million people—that
still live in the dark.
It was no coincidence that the cockpit of the
war was in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Those
states are among the country’s richest in terms
of mineral wealth, containing more than 40 per-
cent of India’s coal reserves. Their subterranean
treasure trove also includes trillions of dollars’
worth of iron ore, limestone, dolomite, and
bauxite reserves. The coal fuels the power plants
that light up India’s distant metropolises. The
steel makes the modern buildings, the gleam-
ing tech complexes, the vehicles and engineering
projects so integral to Modi’s vision.
Yet these two states have the worst record of
Naxalite violence and some of the worst poverty
rates in India. In 2010 one multidimensional anal-
ysis of poverty, drawn up with support from the
United Nations Development Programme, said
that eight Indian states, including Jharkhand and
Chhattisgarh, accounted for more poor people
than the 26 poorest African nations combined.
Rather than reduce the imbalance between
rich and poor, mineral wealth has exacerbated
the divide, adding pollution, violence, and dis-
placement to the daily struggle of those whose
livelihood is locked up in the land. The Karan-
pura Valley of northern Jharkhand epitomizes
the situation. Once famous for its tigers and a
major migration route of elephants, the area
today is home to open coal pits, where massive
quantities of the carbon rock are mined. Origi-
nally mapped in the 1800s, coalfields there were
acquired by Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), a
local subsidiary of state-owned Coal India Lim-
ited (CIL), in the mid-1980s.
Across the decades, CCL had offered all sorts
of compensation to the locals—jobs, money, re-
settlement, alternative housing—in return for
their land and their departure. Many accepted
Fighters from a
Maoist splinter group,
the TPC, patrol a
village in Jharkhand,
looking for former
allies. Feuds and
extortion rackets
have fragmented
the Naxalites during
the insurgency.